At first the usual processes for portrait photography were applied to taking the Moon. But it was soon found necessary to abandon these and adopt others. When a collodion negative has to be enlarged—and this is always the case in lunar photography, where the original picture is taken at the focus of an object glass or mirror—imperfections invisible to the naked eye assume an importance which causes the rejection of many otherwise excellent pictures. Some of these imperfections are pinholes, coarseness of granulation in the reduced silver, liability to stains and markings, spots produced by dust.
These were all avoided by washing off the free nitrate of silver from the sensitive plate, before exposing it to the light, and again submitting it to the action of water, and dipping it back into the nitrate of silver bath before developing. The quantity of nitrate of silver necessary to development when pyrogallic acid is used, is however better procured by mixing a small quantity of a standard solution of that salt with the acid.
The operation of taking a lunar negative is as follows. The glass plates 2 3/4 × 3 1/4 inches are kept in nitric acid and water until wanted. They are then washed under a tap, being well rubbed with the fingers, which have of course been properly cleaned. They are wiped with a towel kept for the purpose. Next a few drops of iodized collodion are poured on each side, and spread with a piece of cotton flannel. They are then polished with a large piece of this flannel, and deposited in a close dry plate box. This system of cleaning with collodion was suggested by Major Russel, to whose skilful experiments photography is indebted for the tannin process. It certainly is most effective, the drying pyroxyline removing every injurious impurity. There is never any trouble from dirty plates.
The stock of plates for the night’s work, a dozen or so, being thus prepared, one of them is taken, and by movement through the air is freed from fibres of cotton. It is then coated with filtered collodion being held near the damp sink. The coated plate, when sufficiently dry, is immersed in a 40 grain nitrate of silver bath, acidified with nitric acid until it reddens litmus paper. The exact amount of acid in the bath makes in this “Washed Plate Process” but little difference. When the iodide and bromide of silver are thoroughly formed the plate is removed, drained for a moment, and then held under the tap till all greasiness, as it is called, disappears. Both front and back receive the current in turn.
Fig. 43.
Plate Carrier.
It is then exposed, being carried on a little wooden stand, Fig. 43, covered with filtering paper to the telescope, and deposited on the sliding plateholder which has been set to the direction and rate of the moon, while the plate was in the bath. The time of exposure is ascertained by counting the beats of a half-second pendulum.
The method by which exposure without causing tremor is accomplished, is as follows: A yellow glass slides through the eyepiece-holder, Fig. [33], just in front of the sensitive plate, and is put in before the plate. The yellow-colored moon is centred on the collodion film, and the clepsydra and slide are set in motion, the mass of the telescope being at rest. A pasteboard screen is put in front of the telescope, and the yellow glass taken out. After 20 seconds the instrument remaining still untouched and motionless, the screen is withdrawn, and as many seconds allowed to elapse as desirable. The screen is then replaced and the plate taken back to the photographic room.
Fig. 44.